Impact PT Golf Blog

Bryson DeChambeau is the 120th U.S Open Champion. There has been a lot of buzz around his new approach to the game this year: gaining 40 pounds and essentially trying to hit the ball as far as he can to make his approach shots easier.

Let's start off by saying that Bryson has put all of his time and energy into this. This is his full time job, and for most of us, this approach is just not realistic. BUT, there are a few things we can take away from what he has done and apply it to our own training.

Now notice that we used the word Competition in each of these metrics. If you look around the internet, you will see videos of Bryson swinging the club at speeds well over 140 and even 150 mph.

But, during competition, he is not reaching these speeds. He has dialed in a speed that he feels he can still be accurate with. But how does he get comfortable swinging at 130mph?? He trains at speeds HIGHER than that.

This is one of the big takeaways from Bryson's approach. We all want to swing the club faster and increase our driving distance. In reality, we are going to swing slower than our max on the course.

If you want to swing the club at 110mph, your actual max should be much higher than this. That way, you can swing the club at around 80-90% of your max and feel comfortable doing so. This will allow you to be more accurate and more controlled with your swing.

So, how do we improve our max speed? We TRAIN it! You should be incorporating exercises that are low rep, fast, and with MAXIMUM effort. Does your training routine include this? Are you even training at all for the golf swing?

Here is a video of a driver swing at 131mph: Link

It is safe to say that this is maximum effort, and even more safe to say that I would have no idea where this ball is flying off the tee. The point is, being able to swing at 131 makes swinging at 105-110 feel much more comfortable.

Here are a few things to keep in mind.

So, we need to make sure that we have a baseline of strength before we try to create power. If we do not have a good foundation of strength, we are not going to be able to train power as effectively. As we are building strength, we should be performing sets of 6-12 reps based on the exercise. When we get to training power, reps should be much lower, with full effort.

What does your training program look like? Do you want to swing the club faster? Give us a call!

For the last 5 months, we have been using the K Motion K-Vest as a part of our golf-specific physical therapy evaluations. This has been an incredible tool that provides invaluable information to add to our movement evaluations. Have you been to physical therapy in the past? I can assure you that after reading this blog post, you will see how we are much different.

What is K-Vest?

The K-Vest involves 4 bluetooth sensors. On around your pelvis, one around your torso, one on your lead arm, and one that is used on your glove to act as the club. The setup takes a couple of minutes – compared to some other systems that take upwards of 20 minutes to set up. We love how practical it is so that we can spend more time evaluating you and coming up with a plan to solve your problem. The Bluetooth sensors connect to a software program on the computer.

What does K-Vest measure?

We use the K-Vest for a number of things, but these are the most common:

• Kinematic Sequence – a perfectly efficient kinematic sequence starts the downswing in this order: Pelvis, torso, arm, club. Often times, a golfer's sequence is out of order, leading to a loss of speed and power – meaning decreased distance. Most commonly, the pelvis does not initiate the downswing, and/or the hands fire much too early. If we can correct the sequence, it will most certainly lead to increased swing speeds and increased distance.
• Measure degrees of motion in 3-D. With the K-Vest, we can see exactly how much rotation, flexion/extension, and sidebend you are getting throughout different parts of your golf swing. The most important parts are setup, top, and impact. We will look at how much (or how little) your pelvis, spine, and torso are moving throughout these positions.
• Identify swing faults that lead to pain. This is a BIG one. I will give an example of this. Reverse Spine Angle is the number one predictor of low back pain in golf (when talking swing characteristics at least). Reverse Spine Angle means that your upper body is leaning too far backwards or too far towards the target in the backswing. We define this as going past 0 (neutral). I don't know about you, but I cannot tell the difference between 0 and 1 degree of motion with the naked eye. Sure, you may be able to see 10 degrees, but it is almost impossible to see 1 or 2 degrees. If you are having low back pain, and we identify Reverse Spine Angle, we NEED to fix this.
• Biofeedback: Sometimes, golfers get into harmful positions without having any mobility/strength deficits. While this is a more rare occurrence, it DOES happen. We need to train the brain to get into the correct position. We can set up a biofeedback session so that the golfer can practice getting into the correct position. We also use biofeedback when we acquire new mobility, and the golfer needs to learn how to use that new mobility. Just because we gain motion, definitely does not mean we know how to use it.

After we gather this information, we go through our PT movement evaluation. We will take the information that the K-Vest software just gave us, and figure out the WHY. We will take the time to figure out the exact cause – is it mobility, stability, strength, or motor control dysfunction? We have golf specific movement screens from the Titleist Performance Institute and we know exactly how much motion you need to be able to play golf without pain.

Now, we have all the information we need. We now come up with a PLAN to improve upon your limitations and start heading towards reaching your goals. We will give you an individualized home exercise program to work on in between visits, and progress/regress as necessary at each follow up session.

On average, a simple problem can be solved in about 6 visits. A more complex, chronic condition usually takes around 10 sessions. We usually see our clients once per week, and educate on what they should be doing on their own between sessions.

Does this sound like a typical Physical Therapy session that you have had in the past? Absolutely not. This usually takes 90 minutes plus, but we get to the direct cause of your problems instead of just chasing symptoms.

Ready to schedule?

Shoulder pain is a common complaint with golfers. Most of us do not realize how much shoulder flexibility and range of motion we actually need in order to effectively swing the golf club without pain. There are two tests that we can utilize in order to determine if we are at risk for shoulder injury while playing golf:

1. Golf posture shoulder external rotation test: Stand in your golf posture as if you were going to hit a 5 iron. Bring one elbow up to shoulder height, and bring your hand up towards the sky (external rotation of the shoulder joint). If you do not clear 90 degrees on either side, you are at risk for injury.

Something to note: Shoulder ER in standing or lying on your back is not the same as while standing in golf posture.

2. Lat test: Stand with your back to a wall with a stick in between your back and the wall. Make a thumbs up sign with your hand, and raise your arms up until your thumbs hit the wall behind you. BUT, you cannot let the stick move from behind your back. Sometimes, we compensate by arching our lower back in order to get more shoulder flexion because the lat muscle comes all the way down and attaches to our pelvic bones.

If you have difficulty passing either of these tests, you may be compensating in other areas in order to swing properly.

Also, lack of thoracic extension mobility can limit our ability to raise our shoulder into flexion. We may have to address this issue in addition to working on shoulder range of motion and flexibility.

There are two different treatment approaches when it comes to Golfer's Elbow, and it all depends on how long you have been experiencing symptoms. First, let's discuss what Golfer's Elbow actually is:

The pain is at the medial side of the elbow (inside). This is different than Tennis Elbow which is at the lateral aspect of the elbow. A group of muscles called your wrist flexors attach to a part of your arm bone (medial epicondyle of the humerus). During the golf swing, these muscles contract at impact to stabilize the position of your wrist through impact.

There are a few reasons that irritation can occur at your medial epicondyle. One can be an increase in volume, meaning that all of a sudden you increase how much you are practicing, playing, etc. This can cause an acute irritation (meaning that the pain has been present for less than 4-6 weeks) which we call medial epicondylitis

With an acute condition, passive modalities may assist in helping your symptoms improve. This involves lowering your practice and play volume, ice, massage, anti-inflammatories.

Another possibility for developing Golfer's Elbow is a progressive worsening of symptoms over several months to several years. This is a chronic condition that we call a medial epicondylosis. The treatment strategy for this condition is much different. We have to strengthen the elbow and wrist in order to create a structural change in the tissue. An elbow strap may lessen some of your pain, but the bottom line is that you need to build STRENGTH.

Call now for your free phone consultation and discuss if we can help YOU!

Everyone wants more distance on their shots. How do we get more distance? By producing more POWER.

Let me start this blog by saying that strength is a prerequisite to Power. If you do not have strength, you won't be able to produce power.

In short, strength is the force produced, and power is how fast you move that force.

Once you have a baseline of strength, we can move into assessing your ability to produce power.

There are 3 areas of the body that we want to look at when talking about producing Power in the golf swing: The lower body, core, and the upper body. We have 3 different tests we can use to test our power in each of the 3 areas. And then we can compare them to see if we are dominant in a certain area or lacking in a certain area. This will help prescribe our exercise program to address areas of weakness.

The nice thing about these 3 tests is that the numbers should be very similar across all 3 tests. If one area is lower that the others, we can address part of the body to make gains so that we are not losing force throughout the golf swing.

Want to assess your ability to produce POWER?

Give us a call today!

The most obvious solution to hitting the ball farther is to increase club head speed. Although this is not the only way, it is the first thing most people think about. The question is, how do we swing the club faster, and in turn, hit the ball farther?

There are 4 pieces of the puzzle that we can attack in order to achieve a faster club head speed, and all are equally important:

Physical/Power – Implementing a training program to build your strength will allow you to create more force and generate faster swing speeds. The swing starts with your lower body pushing force through the ground creating a Ground Reaction Force, and this force is transitioned through the rest of your body to the club. Check out our blog on 3 power tests to see where you may be lacking: Lower Body (vertical jump), Upper Body (seated chest press), Core (Sit up chest pass).

Mobility – In today's world, limited mobility is a common issue due to the amount of sitting, driving, computer work, etc. that we all do daily. The most common areas of limited mobility in the golf swing are the hips and thoracic spine. This limits our backswing and follow through, which limits our club head speed. It can also lead to many swing faults that decrease efficiency in your kinematic sequence, which will cause you to lose power, force, and speed throughout the swing.

Technique – This is where your swing coach comes in. Your coach can analyze your swing and make sure that you are using an efficient and proper approach to hit the ball. With the technology available today, it might be a good idea to get in front of a launch monitor so that you can see all of the specs including attack angle, spin rate, spin loft, carry distance, swing speed, etc. Making some adjustments to your technique can optimize your numbers and help you increase your club head speed and hit the ball farther.

Equipment - Unfortunately, only a small percentage of the amateur golf population is fit for their clubs. Getting properly fit for your clubs is a low hanging fruit that can make changes immediately. It is important to find a fitter that you trust, and use equipment that is fit to your swing to optimize results.